A Palestinian truck driver reportedly escaped ambush by a group of Israeli settlers, Tuesday night, while traversing a main road between Nablus and Qalqiliya in the northern occupied West Bank.

The settlers had set up a checkpoint on the main road near the illegal settlement Havat Gilad before attacking the driver, according to Ghassan Daghlas, a monitor of settler activity in the region.

Ma'an News Agency reports that the truck driver, identified as Rajih Nasr from Halhul in the southern West Bank, stopped his truck as he approached the checkpoint believing it was a police checkpoint. A mob of settlers immediately charged the driver in attempt to seize him.

Realizing he had been ambushed, Nasr managed to run away, driving his truck in the direction of Huwwara village, in the south of Nablus.

Nasr received several punches to the head, with some of the settlers allegedly trying to stab the driver and attack him with pepper spray as he attempted to flee the scene, Daghlas said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman told Ma'an she was "looking into the incident", though such crimes are rarely punished by Israeli authorities.

The trucker driver's assumption that he had driven into a checkpoint comes as so-called "flying" checkpoints are regularly erected by Israeli forces on roads across the West Bank, numbering in the hundreds. There are an additional 99 fixed checkpoints throughout the West Bank, through which Palestinians are consistently stopped and searched by Israeli forces.

The area of Tuesday's attack has witnessed ongoing tensions between Israeli settlers and local Palestinians, as several illegal Jewish-only settlements skirt the area surrounding Nablus, often built on local Palestinians' land.

The Havat Gilad settlement nearby the attack is considered an unauthorized outpost by the Israeli government, and one of of many settlements considered illegal by the international community.

Monday night, Palestinians reportedly threw Molotov cocktails at a settler-owned bus near Nablus, resulting in a town raid and curfew imposed on Huwwara by Israeli forces. Settlers then staged a march in protest of Palestinian attacks.

Settlers in both occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank often gravitate towards private Palestinian lands and carry out acts of violence against residents with the protection and, often, the deliberate assistance of Israeli forces.

In 2014, there were 324 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Israeli soldiers kidnapped, earlier Wednesday, six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including a woman who was leaving the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli extremists storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards.

Eyewitnesses said the soldiers kidnapped Fatina Hussein as she was leaving the Al-Aqsa Mosque, through the Council Gate, and took her to the Elyahu Station, near the Chain Gate, for interrogation.

The woman was taken prisoner as dozens of Israeli fanatics stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards, through the al-Magharba Gate, chanting against the Arabs, while Israeli officers and soldiers accompanied them.

In addition, several military vehicles invaded Bil’in village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, stormed and searched a number of homes and kidnapped two teenagers.

The two have been identified as Mohammad Hussein Hamad, 18, and Wael Shawkat al-Khatib, 18 years of age.

The Soldiers invaded Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, also searched and ransacked homes, and kidnapped four Palestinians.

Media sources in Hebron said the soldiers kidnapped Ahmad Amjad Ja’afra, 18 years of age, from his family home in Tarqoumia town, west of Hebron.

Another Palestinian, identified as Ahmad Mos’ab Ghneimat, was kidnapped from his home in Surif town, northeast of Hebron.

Resident Yosri Mohammad Masalma was also kidnapped from his home in Beit ‘Awwa town, south of Hebron, while Amir Shawkat ‘Alqam, 18, was kidnapped in Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron.

Coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements, in Beit Ummar town, Mohammad ‘Awad said the soldiers invaded various neighborhoods in the town, and searched scores of homes, especially in the town’s center, in addition to the al-Moqattam area.

The Jabari family owns land sandwiched in between the illegal settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha’vot. In 2001, settlers illegally took over part of the land to erect a synagogue-tent on the Jaabari-family land.

All settlements are illegal under international law, unlike most settlements however, this synagogue has also been deemed illegal under Israeli law.

In February 2015 an Israeli court finally ordered the demolition of the tent-synagogue. Even though the demolition was carried out in April, the debris until now still remains on the land and settlers keep on partly rebuilding under the protection of the Israeli forces.

When settlers from the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba first constructed the tent-synagogue on the Jabari family land , they also erected a path connecting Kiryat Arba with the illegal settlement of Givat Hav’ot. It took the family until 2003 to get a demolition order issued by the Israeli Civil Administration. Nothing happened afterwards until the synagogue-tent was destroyed by heavy snow in 2013, only to be rebuild again by settlers.

Finally, on the 18th February 2015 an Israeli court issued a demolition order for the structure and the synagogue-tent was demolished early in the morning on 14th April 2014. Even though the tent was demolished, the Israeli military did not clean up the rubble, that until now is still on the family land. Since the demolition settlers have been partly rebuilding the synagogue-tent with the materials still on the land. “Price Tag” violence from the settlers, both adults and children, has rapidly increased since the demolition, with Palestinians walking past on the main road attacked by settlers, and the Jabari family has been attacked verbally and physically, with stones thrown by settlers. Israeli police and soldiers present at the sight- they watch but do not stop the settlers.Watch this video taken by the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) on settler children attacking Palestinians and human rights observers.

The Jaabari family asked for support with harvesting their fodder crops. As all of their land is either bordering the demolished synagogue-tent or the illegal settlement of Givat Ha’vot, Youth against Settlements (YAS) arranged to help with the harvest on 1st May 2015.

Together with YAS, volunteers from a range of human rights organisations, both local and international, joined the family to harvest the area directly next to the demolished synagogue tent, the area most threatened by settlers.

Israeli occupation forces are prohibiting the Jabaris and all volunteers from using any kind of harvesting tools under threat of arrest. Shortly after harvesting began, settlers, police and the army arrived. At first they only watched the harvest, but after two hours the Israeli forces declared the field a closed military zone and everyone was ordered to leave.

On Saturday, another small field at the top of the Jabari’s land, close to the police station and the illegal settlement of Givat Ha’vot was harvested without interruption by settlers or Israeli forces. The majority of the Jabari family’s crops still remain to be brought in.

Members of the Israeli occupation intelligence, escorted by police officers and fanatic settlers, on Wednesday morning stormed the roofed chapels of Muslims’ Holy al-Aqsa Mosque.

According to local sources, eight members of the Israeli intelligence apparatuses and a horde of 39 extremist settlers, shielded by armed cops, broke into holy al-Aqsa Mosque via El-Magharbeh gate.

The Muslim sit-inners and congregations at the Mosque have stood on their guard to the Israeli vandals and forced them out of the holy site after they attempted to perform a series of provocative rituals.

The fanatic settlers verbally assaulted the Muslim congregation while the police officers came down heavily on a Jerusalemite young lady and the elderly citizen Taha Shawahna.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation police kidnapped the Jerusalemite lady Fatina Hussein early in the morning from al-Majlis Gate.

Earlier, on Tuesday, Israeli cops kidnapped Fatina and took off her veil shortly before they dragged her to the Qishleh detention center.

Members of the Israeli Ateret Cohanim settlement group invaded, on Wednesday at dawn, three apartments belonging to the Abu Nab Palestinian family, in the Central Neighborhood, in Silwan town in Jerusalem, and occupied them.

The group alleges Jewish residents owned the apartments before 1948, when Israel was established in the historic land of Palestine.

According to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan (Silwanic), approximately 20 settlers, accompanied by armed guards and undercover forces of the Israeli military, invaded the neighborhood, and headed towards the apartment building.

The settlers then smashed the front doors of the three apartments, and occupied them.

The owners, all family members, left their apartments on Tuesday evening, to visit one of their brothers who lives in historic Palestine, Silwanic said.

During the attack, cousins of the building’s owners, intercepted the settlers and clashed with them, especially when the assailants tried to blockade some windows, and sprayed the Palestinians with pepper-spray.

Neighbors told Silwanic that they phoned Ahmad Abu Nab and his brothers, Mohammad and Nasser, who rushed back to their building to find it surrounded by Israeli soldiers.

The army then kidnapped the three brothers, and took them to an interrogation facility.

Fifteen members of the Abu Nab family have been living in the apartment building since 1968, after renting it from its owners, members of the Abdul-Razeq Palestinian family.

Israeli settlement groups, including Elad and Ateret Cohanim, claim that the building was a synagogue before 1948.

The two groups are responsible for dozens of incidents in which they occupied homes in Silwan using many methods, including forgery, and in some cases offering large amounts to some owners, who were eventually seduced and sold the property, Silwanic said.

There are 39 illegal Israeli settlement outposts in Silwan, six of them in the Central Neighborhood, 28 in Wadi Hilweh and Beidoun neighborhoods, two outposts in the al-Farooq neighborhood, one in Ras al-‘Amoud, one in the ath-Thoury neighborhood, and one in Wadi ar-Rababa.

A number of extremist Israeli settlers attacked, late on Tuesday at night, a Palestinian man from Hebron, as he was near Sorra village, west of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Media sources in Nablus said the settlers stopped a car driven by Rajeh Mosallam Nasrallah, from the ath-Thaheriyya town, in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, and sprayed his face with pepper-spray, while one of them tried to stab him.

The Palestinian managed escape, while the extremists started throwing stones on him as he fled the scene, but were unable to injure him.

Hundreds of Israeli settlers will march near Nablus on Tuesday to protest attacks by Palestinians, security officials said.

Palestinian officials told Ma'an that settlers from Yitzhar and other nearby settlements will march at 2 p.m. to an intersection where a settler car was set on fire last week by a Molotov cocktail throw by youths.

The main road in Huwwara and the Zatara checkpoint will likely be closed for over two hours while the protest takes place, security officials added.

Overnight Monday, Israeli forces imposed a curfew on the Palestinian village of Huwwara south of Nablus in the northern West Bank after a Molotovcocktail was hurled at a bus of Israeli settlers on a main road near the village.

In 2014, there were 324 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The Nablus area experiences one of the highest rates of settler violence due to the location of settlements near Palestinian population centers. The Nablus district, which includes the city, three refugee camps and fifteen villages, is home to over 200,000 Palestinians whose movement has been several restricted for the past six years, Israeli human rights group B'Tselem describing military restrictions on locals as a "siege."

An Israeli court in Occupied Jerusalem issued a verdict on Tuesday permitting fanatic Israeli rabbi Yehuda Glick to return back to storming the Aqsa Mosque.

Hebrew sources revealed that the court allowed rabbi Glick storm the holy site on condition he does it only once a month and without without escorting cameras or electronic devices. The Israeli police will inform him 24 hours prior to the date.

The extremist Glick was injured by the Jerusalemite martyr Mutaza Hijazi for his repeated incursions into the Aqsa Mosque. 3 women detained at Aqsa, Jewish rightist allowed accessIsraeli police assaulted and detained three Palestinian women from Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Tuesday, on the same day as an Israeli court granted permission to Jewish rightist Yehuda Glick to visit the compound once a month.

Witnesses told Ma'an that the three women were detained when a group of Jewish rightists entered the compound. Israeli police reportedly removed the veil from one woman's face and "dragged" her from the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to the Chain Gate police station, while the two other women were detained while leaving the compound through the Hatta Gate.

The three detainees were identified as Dania Fadel, Fatena Hussein and Maali Siyam. Witnesses added that other Palestinian women were assaulted by Israeli police during the Jewish rightists' tour through the compound.

They also reportedly assaulted Al-Aqsa Mosque guards who attempted to prevent them from assaulting and detaining the women. An Israeli police spokesperson said that three women had been detained for "screaming and shouting 'Allahu Akbar'" and "disturbing the peace" during a group visit to the compound.

He said he did not know who the group were.The arrests came on the same day as the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court allowed Jewish right-wing activist Yehuda Glick to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque compound once a month, ending his barring from the site since August last year.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israeli police will be responsible for coordinating Glick's visits, which will take place "accompanied by one person who does not have a criminal past," and without a camera or telephone.

The right-wing Jewish activist came to prominence for leading groups of rightists into the mosque compound to worship, in contravention of an agreement between Israel and the Islamic endowment since 1967 that prohibits non-Muslim prayer in the compound.

Glick was barred from the compound in August last year after he attacked a 67-year-old Palestinian woman, Ziva Badarna.Afterwards, in October, the right-wing activist survived an assassination attempt when he was shot and critically injured by a Palestinian during an East Jerusalem rally near the compound.

Although he then declared that he would not be prevented from visiting the Al-Aqsa compound by anyone, an Israeli court upheld the ban on the basis that Glick’s presence was liable to cause disorderly conduct and constituted a danger to the public.

However, a judge on Tuesday said: "It hasn't been proven to me that this is a clear and present danger," Haaretz reported.

The third holiest site in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is also venerated as Judaism's most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood. Under the 1967 agreement between Israel and the Islamic endowment, the compound is limited to Muslim worship, while Jews can pray at the neighboring Western Wall, the last remnant of the Second Temple.

However, Israeli forces regularly escort Jewish visitors to Al-Aqsa, leading to anger among Muslim worshipers.

Israeli settlers harassed Palestinians, including small children, in the West Bank's South Hebron Hills this past weekend.

Four settlers, one of them armed, harassed a Palestinian walking with his son through the Palestinian-owned Humra valley in the southern West Bank's South Hebron Hills on Saturday.

The Palestinian was so alarmed by the settlers' shouting and threats that they requested that international volunteers from the group Operation Dove accompany him and his son through this exposed area.

When the international volunteers arrived on the scene, the settlers entered the nearby Palestinian village of Kharrouba, from which Israel deported its residents in 1999, entering caves and homes.

And on Friday two Palestinians, a six-year-old child and his sister, were harassed and chased by settlers as they walked to their home in the South Hebron Hills village of Tuba. The settlers screamed at and chased them, frightening the Palestinians who ran away.

These daily incidents of ongoing settler harassment renders Palestinian life in the South Hebron Hills and other places in the West Bank's Area C, over which Israel has full control, extremely difficult.

Radical
Jewish settlers stormed the Aqsa Mosque under tight security measures
while Israeli policemen rounded up five Palestinians in Occupied
Jerusalem on Sunday.

Eyewitnesses
in Occupied Jerusalem revealed that 40 radical settlers stormed the
plazas of the Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli police and
Special Forces. The Muslim worshippers confronted the settlers with
chants of Allahu Akbar.

Two Israeli army soldiers provocatively toured the courtyards of the holy site, the eyewitnesses said.

1326 settlers in addition to 72 members of Israeli intelligence broke into the plazas of the Aqsa Mosque in April.

In
a similar context, the Israeli policemen at dawn on Sunday rounded up
five Palestinians after storming their houses in different locations in
Occupied Jerusalem.

In
a statement, the committee of prisoners’ families in East Jerusalem
revealed that the Israeli forces stormed and wreaked havoc in a
Palestinian house in Silwan town to the south of the Aqsa Mosque.

The forces assaulted the people in the house and arrested a Palestinian man and both of his sons who are 17 and 21 years old.

In
Ras al-Amud neighborhood to the east of Occupied Jerusalem, the
Israeli forces arrested a 17-year-old Palestinian after destroying the
door of his house and ransacking the house.

The
forces also rounded up a 24-year-old man after storming his home and
assaulting his family members in Anata town in northeast Occupied
Jerusalem.

Just in April, the Israeli forces arrested 114 Jerusalemites including 40 minors and 14 women.

40 extremist Jewish settlers stormed at noon on Saturday Qarqesh archeological village to the west of Salfit governorate in the occupied West Bank.

Eyewitnesses told PIC reporter that the settlers roamed and took photos in the village while a tourist guide was offering explanations on the history of the village and the area.

The researcher Khaled Maali said the settlers’ incursion is not the first as settlers previously arranged several tours to the village and its surrounding area.

The village dates pack to Roman times. It has historic caves, theatres, pools, and cemeteries, Maali said.He added that the factories of the Israeli nearby Ariel settlement are only dozens of meters far from the village.Maali warned of isolating the village by Ariel outpost’s structures just like what happened in Dair Samaan village in Salfit.

He also warned of changing the history of Qarqesh village as the settlers claim that it belongs to Jews who resided in Palestine in the ancient times.

Israeli soldiers kidnapped, earlier Saturday, five Palestinians, including three children and a security officer, in the occupied West Bank, after breaking into homes and searching them, and kidnapped one Palestinian, on Friday evening.

Several military vehicles invaded the Tal Romeida neighborhood, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, before violently searching and ransacking a number of homes.

The soldiers also kidnapped two children, identified as Nizar Nidal Salhab, 14, and ‘Awni ‘Ammar abu Shamsiyya, 15 years of age.

Israeli extremists of the Ramat Yeshai illegal outpost attacked the two children, before the soldiers arrived on the scene, and kidnapped them, instead of removing the assailing fanatics.

Another Palestinian identified as Thaer Mohammad ‘Amro, 22, was kidnapped after the soldiers stormed his home, and searched it, in Doura, south of Hebron.

Soldiers also installed a sudden roadblock on the Jericho road, and kidnapped a Palestinian security officer identified as Lieutenant Mohammad Yassin Kabaha, 37 years of age.

Kabaha, from Toura al-Gharbeyya village, west of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, was on his way to Jericho to participate in a special training course.

The soldiers also invaded Ya’bad town, west of Jenin, violently searched dozens of homes, used some rooftops as monitoring towers, and interrogated the families.

Other military units searched farmlands, and installed a roadblock leading to the villagers’ orchards.

In Bethlehem, local youths clashed with soldiers invading Jabal al-Mawaleh area, and threw a Molotov cocktail on one of the military vehicles.

The soldiers tried to ambush the protesters, but withdrew after failing to kidnap any of them.

In addition, soldiers invaded ‘Ailet ‘Ali area, east of Bethlehem, and handed one Palestinian, identified as Ahmad Ibrahim Ali, 30 years of age, a military warrant for interrogation in the Etzion military base.

The army also invaded Bethlehem city, searched a number of homes, and handed a similar order to ‘Issa Nader Saleh, 18.

In addition, Israeli soldiers said they arrested a Palestinian teen, “after attempting to stab a soldier”, at the Tunnel Roadblock, south of occupied Jerusalem.

The Israeli Radio said the teenager “raised a knife and tried to stab a soldier, before he was subdued.”

The unidentified teen was moved to an Israeli military center for interrogation, the Israeli Radio added.

On Friday evening, soldiers invaded Wad al-Jouz neighborhood, in occupied Jerusalem, and clashed with local youths before kidnapping one Palestinian, identified as Mohannad Saharabati, 19 years of age, near Abdin Mosque.

The Jerusalem District Court filed indictments Tuesday against a 19-year-old and two minors from the settlement of Bat Ayin for alleged attacks on Palestinians, Israeli media reported.

The three were charged with racially motivated and aggravated assault, assault on a public servant, racially motivated willful damage to property and other charges, Israeli news source Haaretz said, identifying the perpetrators as Or Shahar, 19, and two minors aged 16 and 17.

The indictment comes amid alleged efforts by Israeli authorities to reverse the current system of impunity for settler violence in the occupied East Jerusalem and West Bank.

Such incidents are often referred to as "price-tag" attacks, acts of violence or vandalism on Palestinians and their property or Israeli military targets carried out in retribution for perceived action by the Israeli government against the settlement enterprise. Following price-tag attacks on Vatican-owned offices in occupied East Jerusalem in May 2014, Israeli Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said the government planned to begin using administrative detention against suspected extremists.

Although police had made scores of arrests, there had been few successful prosecutions for price-tag attacks and the government was facing mounting pressure to authorize the Shin Bet internal security agency to step in. The first conviction for a price-tag attack was carried out in December 2014, when two settlers were sentenced to 30 months in prison for setting fire to two Palestinian vehicles.

The US State Department's 2013 Country Reports on Terrorism included price-tag attacks for the first time, citing UN figures of some "399 attacks by extremist Israeli settlers that resulted in Palestinian injuries or property damage. "Such attacks were "largely unprosecuted," it said.

Earlier this month the Jerusalem District Court accepted a plea bargain in the case of four teenage Israelis who admitted to setting fire to a Palestinian cafe near Hebron, despite pledges by Israel's Justice Ministry to combat anti-Palestinian hate crime. The three indicted Tuesday allegedly assaulted a Palestinian worker who came to the Bat Ayin settlement in the occupied West Bank to deliver merchandise that had been ordered from him.

They sprayed tear gas at the man and a soldier who tried to help the him, and beat the man with wooden planks, Haaretz reported. The Bat Ayin settlers also threw stones at a Palestinian truck a week afterwards, and cut down 35 olive trees belonging to Palestinians in May 2014, spray-painting the words "Arabs are thieves" in the orchard. The damage was estimated at 30,000 shekels (about $7,700).

According to Israeli media, the prosecution asked the court to extend the remand of the three until the end of proceedings.

Extremist Jewish groups of settlers uprooted fruitful trees in Housan town in Bethlehem in the late evening hours on Tuesday.

Member of Housan town’s council Taha Hamamrah told Quds Press that the Jewish settlers coming from Beitar Illit settlement uprooted more than 20 olive and citrus fruitful trees which belong to two Palestinian families.

The trees are implanted in a land lot located inside the wall of the Israeli Beitar Illit outpost which was established by force on the town’s land, Hamamrah said.

The two Palestinian families own dozens of dunums inside the settlement. The settlers continuously destroy their plantings. Besides, the Israeli forces prevent the Palestinian owners from approaching their lands unless there is coordination with the Palestinian Authority Liaison Office for the issuance of Israeli permits.

The extremist Jewish settlers continue their aggressive practices of damaging lands and uprooting trees in the occupied West Bank under the protection of Israeli forces.

Still from video﻿Video: Jerusalem woman arrested for allegedly setting gas tank of stranger's car on fire while his brother was in the back seat. A 35-year-old woman was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of setting fire to a car belonging to a man who refused to give her a cigarette. The incident occurred in the middle of the day at a gas station in Jerusalem, while the driver's brother sat in the car. Fortunately, no one was hurt.Security footage led to the apprehension and arrest of the suspect soon after the crime. She denied the accusation during questioning, saying she had been mistaken for someone else.

The owner of the vehicle told Ynet on Wednesday morning that he had seen the woman around his workplace, and that she occasionally asks people from money. "I told investigators that I pity her a bit, because it looks like she was in serious distress," he said.